Unlike California’s majestic rivers and massive dams and
conveyance systems, groundwater is out of sight and underground,
though no less plentiful. The state’s enormous cache of
underground water is a great natural resource and has contributed
to the state becoming the nation’s top agricultural producer and
leader in high-tech industries.
Groundwater is also increasingly relied upon by growing cities
and thirsty farms, and it plays an important role in the future
sustainability of California’s overall water supply. In an
average year, roughly 40 percent of California’s water supply
comes from groundwater.
A new era of groundwater management began in 2014 with the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act, which requires local
and regional agencies to develop and implement sustainable
groundwater management plans with the state as the backstop.
Forty two percent of shallow wells supplying water to community
water systems in California’s San Joaquin Valley are vulnerable
to going partially or fully dry under the state’s minimum
thresholds, finds a new report from the Pacific Institute. Most
impacted wells are shallower, and tend to be in disadvantaged
communities.
Mechanical engineer Brent Yamasaki set out amid the recent
blistering heat wave to take stock of the giant dams, pumps and
pipes that support Diamond Valley Lake in Riverside County, the
largest storehouse of water in Southern
California…. water availability in Southern California
“is expected to remain relatively stable over the next few
years,” says Deven Upadhyay, the MWD’s chief operating officer.
“Diamond Valley Lake is a key part of that forecast….”
On Sunday evening, a well motor failed in a Madera Ranchos
community water system that serves around 1,000
homes. Last week, another well pump stopped working in
Parksdale, southeast of Madera. Neither community has lost
water service. Both are experiencing low pressure. Madera
County Public Works runs both water systems. From Madera
Acres to the Bonadelle Ranchos, private wells are running
dry at an alarming rate. Self-Help Enterprises, an
organization that supports communities with water challenges,
has been tracking the problem.
In this blistering year in California, drinking water wells are
going dry in increasing numbers, rekindling memories of the
historic drought of 2012 to 2016, when more than 2,600 wells
across the state stopped producing water. So many wells went
dry in 2014 in the town of East Porterville that Tulare County
supplied portable public showers. California is not yet to that
level of emergency…. But because the trend lines do not look
promising, government agencies and nonprofit groups are
preparing for a difficult summer in which thousands of wells
could fail.
Unlike most Bay Area cities, Morgan Hill gets 100 percent of
its water from underground wells. And that’s a big reason why
the city became the first in Santa Clara County to issue
mandatory water use restrictions. … The mayor said he
enjoys his green grass as much as the next person, but said
mandatory watering cutbacks to just two days a week and only in
the early morning or late evening hours mean it won’t look lush
for long.
Central Valley cattle ranchers are gearing up for a fight
against what they see as groundwater rustling. Their fear is
that newly formed groundwater agencies in some areas could
devalue their land by not giving them a fair share of their own
groundwater. Ranchers believe those fears were realized on June
8 when the Madera County Board of Supervisors approved a
groundwater allocation that will partially exclude rangeland.
Ranchers who own rangeland that has never been irrigated won’t
receive a share of the county’s “transitional water” allotment.
Instead of turning on the faucet to fill her pots to cook
dinner, Maria Olivera turns to her drums of state issued water
sitting next to the stove at her home in Tooleville.
… Tooleville spans all of two dusty dirt roads at the
edge of the Friant-Kern Canal, where the blue hue of flowing
water is just out of sight over raised levees. Along with it,
the basic human right of having clean drinking water. Nitrates
from farming fertilizers have rendered the water undrinkable in
Tooleville, and the community is dependent on biweekly water
deliveries.
As California suffers from a major drought and enters a climate
change fueled wildfire season, oil and gas operators continue
to use hundreds of millions of gallons of freshwater for
drilling operations annually. It’s a vicious symbiotic cycle:
fracking and drilling contribute to climate change and suck up
finite water resources, then drought and wildfires worsen from
climate change.
The drought facing the Western United States is
bad. Really bad. It’s become worse faster than the last
one. As more of the United States suffers from drought
conditions and water supplies are diminishing, water
demands are rising. Smaller water supplies combined with
increasingly unpredictable weather patterns and other effects
of climate change pose an enormous threat by creating a
feedback loop that exacerbates drought conditions and
increases wildfire risk across the United States.
As California plunges into another “historic” drought, people
across the state are worried about water shortages. But the
last drought never really ended for some Californians, like
residents of East Porterville that still have emergency water
storage tanks in their front yards. With the state’s current
financial surplus, we have a once-in-a-generation opportunity
to fund drought preparedness and water safety in communities
that have lived for decades with shallow and contaminated
drinking water wells, inadequate water treatment, and other
infrastructure failures… -Written by Carolina Garcia, a resident of Tombstone
Territory, and Sandra Chavez, a member of the
Safe and Affordable Funding for Equity and Resilience (SAFER)
Advisory Group.
Much of California’s $50 billion agricultural industry depends
on groundwater. We typically see only what this water makes
possible above the soil: almond and pistachio groves, citrus
orchards, rows of lettuce and grapevines and cattle herds in a
valley that supplies a quarter of the nation’s food even when
surface water is scarce. But a lot is happening below the
surface. Deep underground, intricate channels of sand and
gravel weave through tightly packed clays and silts, allowing
Earth to hold water like a sponge.
Severe drought is gripping most of California, but its misery
isn’t spread equally. While most of the state compares today’s
extreme conditions to previous droughts, people in Tulare
County speak of drought — in the singular, as in a continuous
state of being. … Tulare County’s never-ending drought
brings dried up wells and plenty of misery The entire West is
suffering from extreme dryness, heat and fire risk, and the
small, rural towns of northern Tulare County, outside of
Visalia, are caught in its vortex.
A large oilfield wastewater disposal pond near Buttonwillow
will likely close this summer, and its operator and last
remaining customer will together pay $645,000 in penalties and
fees, under a recent court settlement that further restricts a
decades-old practice that has become a focus of regional water
quality regulators. The accord concludes a 2019 lawsuit that
accused facility owner Valley Water Management Co. and
Colorado-based oil producer Sentinel Peak Resources of dumping
fluid containing harmful chemicals above a reservoir that
provides local drinking and irrigation water.
A $45 million project that will partially reshape the area
around the mouth of the Carmel River promises to increase flood
control and restore the biodiversity in the area. Called the
“Carmel River Floodplain Restoration and Environmental
Enhancement,” the nonprofit Big Sur Land Trust, Monterey
County, the Monterey Regional Parks District and the state are
collaborating to restore the historic floodplain of a portion
of the Carmel River where it meets Highway 1.
Military bases across California, including some in San Diego,
have tested positive for a toxic chemical. A bill sponsored by
U.S. Sen. Alex Padilla attempts to find the money to finally
clean up the legacy of PFAS. The Department of Defense has
known for decades that a chemical found in aviation fire
fighting foam contains potentially toxic polyfluoroalkyl
substances (PFAS), which has been linked to cancer when found
in groundwater, Padilla said.
Restoration implies returning to a prior state. A broken cup
carefully glued, might appear nearly as whole as the original,
but will always differ from the original. Ecosystem
restoration attempts to return an evolving web of
interconnected species and physical processes to a prior state.
This endeavor raises complex questions: what prior state should
be the restoration target?
During the budget hearings on June 8, the Mendocino County
Board of Supervisors unanimously passed a proposal for a
standalone water agency to combat water insecurity in Mendocino
County. This water agency will immediately focus on the local
drought emergency and work on other water-related projects,
such as water curtailment and groundwater management, in the
future.
The first assessments of groundwater sustainability
plans have been released by the California Department of
Water Resources (DWR). In lieu of waiting until the end of the
two-year review period, DWR has decided to release assessments
as they are completed. Assessments have been completed for the
Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400
Foot Aquifer Subbasin in Monterey County. Assessments
for the Cuyama Valley Basin and Paso Robles Subbasin have also
been completed.
We’re moving later this summer to new quarters closer to the
Sacramento River, and we don’t want to haul all of our water
maps, Layperson’s Guides, DVDs and more to the new home. So
we’re making you a limited-time offer we hope you can’t refuse:
Take 30 percent off the price of all of our maps, guides
and more.
California’s drought highlights the importance of an
appointment sitting on Gov. Gavin Newsom’s desk – filling the
final seat on the State Water Resources Control
Board. This is a critical agency appointment at a
critical time. The drought highlights many inequities in
California water policy. Disadvantaged communities in Stockton
face the prospect of a drought summer plagued by harmful algae
blooms in Delta rivers. Those algae outbreaks, which can
harm children and kill pets, are caused by excessive nutrients
and inadequate freshwater flow. -Written by Belinda Faustina, a strategic advisor
with Los Angeles Waterkeeper, and Barbara
Barrigan-Parilla, the executive director of Restore the
Delta.
At the Kern County Water Summit held last week, hosted by the
Water Association of Kern County, Acting Deputy Director of the
Department of Water Resources Statewide Groundwater Management
Program Steven Springhorn provided an update on the
Department’s progress on SGMA implementation, including the
Department’s review of the submitted Groundwater Sustainability
Plans and the existing and proposed SGMA-related assistance.
The Union has printed several opinion pieces by Idaho-Maryland
Mine Project opponents. The majority of these columns present
“information” that’s either biased or misleading and based
neither on science nor logic. Here are the facts.
… Recent columns erroneously suggest that groundwater
impacts cannot be accurately predicted. Numerous expert
hydrogeologists and a century of mining at the Idaho-Maryland
say otherwise. … The actual conclusion is that no wells
would be drained… -Written by Ben Mossman, president of Rise Grass
Valley and CEO of Rise Gold Corp., U.S. corporations.
When a historic drought gripped California and the Bay Area,
water managers came together to keep drinkable water in the
homes of vulnerable areas in Marin and Contra Costa Counties.
Two veterans of those efforts describe the dramatic process,
and consider lessons it offers for today’s imminent drought.
Against the backdrop of what’s shaping up as a devastating
drought year, the California Department of Water Resources has
released its first assessments of groundwater sustainability
plans developed by local agencies to meet the requirements of
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. The department
released reviews of four local plans, approving two but sending
the other two back to local groundwater sustainability
agencies, saying the plans need more work.
Normally, the biggest vegetable grower in Sonoma County,
Humberto Castañeda Produce, grows heirloom tomatoes, cucumbers,
corn, watermelons and other crops on 180 acres outside of Santa
Rosa. But this year, Humberto Castañeda and his son, Gabriel,
are farming only 17 acres after receiving a fraction of their
normal allotment of water from the city of Santa Rosa.
… The Castañedas are among countless farmers across the
state taking drastic measures to deal with the drought…
[During the last drought], small rural communities reliant on
shallow wells — many of them communities of color — were among
the most affected. More than 2,600 households reported losing
access to water because their wells went dry between 2012–16.
(That number is likely an undercount as reporting was
voluntary.) Much has changed however since the 2012–16 drought.
Drought reporting systems such as MyDryWaterSupply are
available today, and better data on domestic well depths and
locations, as well as groundwater levels, aid our understanding
of drought risk. -Written by Rich Pauloo, co-founder of the Water Data
Lab; and Alvar Escriva-Bou, a research fellow at the
Public Policy Institute of California Water.
In unburned forests, the spring runoff is a glorious, annual
event. But not this year. [U.S. Forest service ecologist Liz]
Roberts and other forest experts know that the runoff will
carry an array of frightening heavy metals and ash-laden
sediment generated in the burned soils, posing danger to the
people of Glenwood Springs, who rely on Grizzly Creek and its
neighbor just to the west, No Name Creek, for drinking
water.
For decades, large red-hot furnaces cooked the lead from
smashed batteries at the Exide plant, just seven miles from
Downtown Los Angeles, spouting plumes of toxic air that settled
on and contaminated thousands of homes. … In the years
since, the facility has been cited repeatedly for serious
compliance problems. According to a former DTSC senior
scientist’s review of public records, at least four are
responsible for soil and groundwater contamination that the
department has or should have known about for years or even
decades.
Among the nearly one hundred development projects pending on
the county of Napa Current Projects website comes a sleeper of
a project likely to go unnoticed by Napa city residents and
businesses who will be most negatively impacted. The remote
vineyard development project, proposed deep in the
headwaters above Lake Hennessey, seeks to clear 156.8 acres of
existing vegetation including oak woodlands, foothill pine
communities, and grasslands in order to construct a vineyard in
the Conn Creek/Lake Hennessey watershed. -Written by Kellie Anderson, resident of Angwin.
Not all farmland in the San Joaquin Valley will survive in a
post-SGMA world. Estimates are that the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act will force between 500,000 to one million acres
of land that’s currently farmed to be taken out of production
to save groundwater. Which lands and what will become of those
lands are major question marks at this point. If Gov. Newsom’s
revised budget is approved as is, those questions could have an
extra $500 million to help find answers.
The wait is over for some Groundwater Sustainability Agencies
(GSAs). The California Department of Water Resources (DWR)
released the first Groundwater Sustainability Plan (GSP)
assessments for four basins yesterday, June 3, 2021. DWR
approved the 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in Salinas Valley
and the Santa Cruz Mid-County Basin. DWR determined both GSPs
“satisf[y] the objectives of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) and substantially compl[y] with the GSP
Regulations.”
Recent research from the US Geological Survey (USGS) suggests
that droughts, particularly the prolonged kind happening in
parts of the US, could increase the risk of harmful arsenic
exposure for people that rely on well water. Hundreds of
millions of years ago, the baseline quality of your drinking
water may have been set in stone, literally. Arsenic is a
common groundwater contaminant, largely because of local
geology. In Maine, for instance, the formation of the
Appalachian Mountains and volcanic activity came together to
concentrate arsenic and other metals into cracks inside the
bedrock…
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) released its
first assessments of groundwater sustainability plans developed
by local agencies to meet the requirements of the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). DWR has completed its
assessment and approved plans for the Santa Cruz Mid-County
Basin in Santa Cruz County and 180/400 Foot Aquifer Subbasin in
Monterey County.
Water Audit California is suing to make Napa County increase
oversight of groundwater pumping for vineyards, wineries, and
other uses, claiming that the pumping affects the Napa River.
The lawsuit said the county has a “public trust” duty to care
for the river. The idea is that too much groundwater pumping
from wells can keep groundwater from seeping into the river
during dry months, to the detriment of fish and other aquatic
life.
Groundwater is one of the hottest ticket items in California’s
water world these days. But much about it is a mystery. Where
is it? How does it move? Which are the best spots to percolate
water into the ground for storage? At least two technologies
hope to answer some of those questions: airborne
electromagnetic surveys and interferometric synthetic aperture
radar. That’s AEM and InSAR for short.
Cynthia Beltran moved to Sunizona with her seven-year-old son
last autumn even though the area lacks functional drinking
water wells, because it was all she could afford. She cannot
afford the $15,000 cost of deepening her well, which dried
up last year, and had been paying for a local firm to deliver
water in a tanker. But at $100 a week it became too expensive,
so now she will be relying on a friend to help her fetch water
from her mother’s well. … Nearly 20 wells in Sunizona
alone were deepened between 2015 and 2019, after they dried
up.
California farmers and ranchers are preparing for a difficult
growing season as the state faces drought conditions. The
California Board of Food and Agriculture met on Tuesday to
discuss ways to help farmers and ranchers, as well as to
discuss the proposed $5.1 billion included in the governor’s
budget to address drought challenges and water infrastructure.
After back-to-back dry years, the state’s water supply is
strained, forcing farmers like Joe Martinez in Solano County to
figure out ways to get the most out of their water.
Free bottled water has begun to arrive at homes
with nitrate-tainted wells in parts of Stanislaus and
Merced counties. The ambitious effort, funded by farmers
and other parties, launched the week of May 10 with free
testing of residential wells. Those that exceeded the nitrate
threshold can start getting the 5-gallon jugs about 17 to 21
days later.
Can California regions regulate groundwater without destroying
their businesses and communities? That’s the question being
posed as regions and localities implement the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), the historic 2014 state law
that brought regulation to California’s diminishing groundwater
supplies. –Written by columnist Joe Matthews
Can California regulate groundwater without destroying its own
communities? That’s the question being posed as regions
implement the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA),
the historic 2014 state law regulating California’s diminishing
groundwater supplies. Groundwater is buried in aquifers,
underground spaces between rocks, soils, and sand. Layers of
aquifers are called groundwater basins. California has hundreds
of them. Eight-five percent of Californians depend on
groundwater …
-Written by Joe Mathews, who writes the Connecting
California column for Zócalo Public Square.
Back in 1977, President Jimmy Carter wanted to put the Central
Arizona Project on a hit list of 17 water projects he found too
expensive and environmentally destructive. … [N]ow, as CAP’s
first water shortages draw near, a more subtle, long-term
threat to the Tucson area’s water future is emerging because of
climate change.
Two large reservoirs in our backyard are capable of holding
40,000 acre feet of water to recharge the underground table.
But federal rules prevent them from reaching capacity and it
will take an act of Congress to change the rules. Big Dry
Creek Reservoir in Clovis and Fancher Creek Reservoir east of
Clovis together can hold 40,000 acre feet of storm water.
That’s water that can eventually stream into the underground
water table.
The appeal filed by Gordon Bennett of a proposed well outside
of Point Reyes Station was rejected on Monday by planning
commissioners, who said they did not have the expertise to
evaluate it. Mr. Bennett says he will now appeal the
project to the Board of Supervisors, and will keep appealing
until someone addresses his concerns about maintaining a
minimum flow for endangered coho salmon in Lagunitas
Creek.
Over the past decade, the farming town of Corcoran, California,
has been sinking two feet every year as agriculture firms pump
underground water to irrigate crops. The 7.47 square-mile area
in California’s San Joaquin Valley has 21,960 people and has
sunk 11.5 feet in the last 14 years. According to
the USGS California Water Science Center, the sinking is
the product of agriculture industries pumping underground water
to irrigate their crops for decades.
A team of USDA agricultural scientists in the Golden State are
helping farmers make the most out of a natural resource that is
becoming ever more precious – water. California produces
two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and nuts and one-third of its
vegetables, but above average temperatures and long-term
drought have put a strain on the water resources it takes to
grow these crops. Most of California’s precipitation falls
during the winter, which means summertime irrigation is
required to produce many of the state’s crops. Higher
temperatures and shifting rainfall patterns increase water
demand and reduce supply.
Who has the right to water in the Kern River? It has been the
subject of fierce legal battles throughout Bakersfield’s
history, and on Friday, the Ventura County Superior Court tried
to answer a part of that question. In a court ruling, Judge
Kevin DeNoce found the city of Bakersfield must supply the
North Kern Water Storage District with 20,000 acre feet of
water it owed the district in 2020 and pay the district $2.8
million to reimburse groundwater pumping costs the district
incurred last year. It’s the latest court decision in a
long-running dispute, and it threatens to limit the city’s
ability to use water from the Kern River.
After a wildfire, soils in burned areas often become water
repellent, leading to increased erosion and flooding after
rainfall events – a phenomenon that many scientists have
attributed to smoke and heat-induced changes in soil chemistry.
But this post-fire water repellency may also be caused by
wildfire smoke in the absence of heat, according to a new paper
from the Desert Research Institute (DRI) in Nevada.
California’s water supply got cut again Wednesday, with the
federal government reducing allocations to cities and farms as
the drought intensified. The U.S. Bureau of Reclamation
announced that municipal water agencies that rely on the
Central Valley Project will have this year’s allocations
slashed from 55% down to 25% — a level not seen since the
drought of 2015. That could put additional pressure on the
municipalities around greater Sacramento that depend on
supplies from Folsom Lake, whose water levels have sunk
dramatically this spring. The reservoir is at 46% of its usual
capacity for late May.
Because Bay Area low-lying sewage treatment plants remain
vulnerable to rising sea levels, government regulators told
sewage facility managers to “provide a written plan for coping
with SLR by the fall of 2021 – or they will be given a
plan.” The NBC Bay Area Investigative Unit reached out to
10 “at risk” sewage treatment plants to see those
plans. All except one provided extensive documents of
their proposals, the cost to address them, and even provided
tours of completed work. San Francisco’s Public Utilities
Commission replied to the Investigative Unit’s public records
request that after a “diligent search for records…no records
were found.”
Day after day, sheriff’s deputies drive up and down the road
outside Steve Griset’s 600-acre farm, pulling over anyone who
appears to be hauling water for the thousands of marijuana
greenhouses that have taken over the countryside here. Griset
has become a target, even though he grows alfalfa. Last year,
investigators with the Siskiyou County District Attorney’s
Office raided Griset’s house with a search warrant looking for
his business records, and the DA followed up with a lawsuit in
civil court. Griset’s alleged transgressions? He was selling
water from his well to his pot-farming neighbors, immigrants of
Hmong descent …
The Marin County Planning Commission voted on Monday to reject
an environmental group’s petition to block a West Marin water
supply project over potential impacts to Lagunitas Creek flows
and endangered wildlife. The decision allows the North Marin
Water District to build a new well that it says is necessary to
ensure its West Marin customers have adequate water supply in
the face of the worsening saltwater contamination at some of
its existing wells.
In California’s San Joaquin Valley, the farming town of
Corcoran has a multimillion-dollar problem. It is almost
impossible to see, yet so vast it takes NASA scientists using
satellite technology to fully grasp. Corcoran is sinking. Over
the past 14 years, the town has sunk as much as 11.5 feet in
some places — enough to swallow the entire first floor of a
two-story house and to at times make Corcoran one of the
fastest-sinking areas in the country, according to experts with
the United States Geological Survey.
Anew report warning Arizona’s urban area aquifers remain at
risk from groundwater pumping is drawing praise from several
water experts, including some who once worked for the state
agency that enforces the law regulating pumping.
The Arizona Legislature wants to look into the feasibility of
pumping water from the Mississippi River to Arizona. But the
U.S. Bureau of Reclamation has already studied the idea, and
weighed in on the project in 2012. The agency studied factors
such as cost, legal issues, power use and the amount of time
the project would take. A report estimated the project could
cost up to $14 billion; the timetable was around 30
years.
California’s Governor Newsom recently declared a drought
emergency throughout much of California and announced over $5
billion in new water program investments. These twin
emergency and funding announcements are a classic “bad-news
creates good news story” (and potentially vice versa) for
California’s water problems. They are opportunities for
innovation and making long-term improvements for California’s
water problems. They also can reward and entrench less
effective programs and approaches.
When Sierra snow seeps into the ground or evaporates before it
can flow downstream into reservoirs, you know California is
facing a severe drought. It’s happening this spring up and down
the mountain range that is a primary water source for the
state. Water from snowmelt that hydrologists had expected only
a few weeks ago to replenish foothill reservoirs is vanishing.
It’s being absorbed by the parched soil or dissipating into the
thin mountain air. -Written by George Skelton, a Los Angeles Times
columnist.
Yolo County Flood Control & Water Conservation District is
pleased to announce that Kristin Sicke has been selected to
become the new general manager of the irrigation
district. The District’s primary mission is to provide
surface water for agricultural purposes in western Yolo County,
and is integral to monitoring and maintaining sustainable
groundwater supplies within the county.
In wetter times, these feathery beds of asparagus would produce
generations of tender green spears, reaching for the vast San
Joaquin Valley sky. [Last] Monday they were disked into the dry
dirt, their long lives cut short by unreliable and expensive
water. … With no guarantee of irrigation water this
summer, Del Bosque and other California farmers are making
tough choices, sacrificing one crop to save another. The
strategy is part of a larger and longer agricultural shift here
in the heart of California’s $50 billion agriculture industry:
Low-value, high-water crops are disappearing from the Golden
State.
Growers in the Central Coast region of California produce most
of the cool-season vegetables for the U.S. from March to
mid-November. After several years of multi-cropping vegetables,
the groundwater in many of the coastal valleys has become
contaminated with nitrate. Some wells have concentrations of
nitrate several times the federal drinking water standard of 10
ppm (parts per million) nitrate-N. Rural communities that rely
on groundwater as their sole source of drinking water must
purchase bottled water or install small reverse osmosis
systems.
The Estrella-El Pomar-Creston Water District (EPCWD) has begun
creating a groundwater level monitoring network. Initially, the
district has begun work to add 30 new groundwater level
monitoring sites, using existing wells, throughout the
37,000-acre district. The campaign marks a significant
effort in the basin to move toward groundwater sustainability
in the Paso Robles Subbasin, according to the EPCWD.
Last week, the Association of California Water Agencies (ACWA)
held their spring conference virtually. Keynote speakers
included Wade Crowfoot, Secretary of Natural Resources, and
Karla Nemeth, Director of the Department of Water
Resources. In his speech, [Crowfoot] discussed the Newsom
Administration’s priorities, calling this the ‘decade of
resilience’, and giving three principles for going
forward. He also discussed the Voluntary
Agreements. Director Karla Nemeth gave the Thursday
morning keynote speech, touching on the Department’s response
to drought, SGMA implementation, the Delta Conveyance Project,
and the water use efficiency regulations.
Crystal Geyser bought the nearly 145,000 square foot bottling
plant in 2013. Since then, it’s been the target of protests by
local activists and members of the Winnemem Wintu Tribe.
Opponents say if it ever started operating, it would draw down
too much water, and cause air and noise pollution. … They are
in the midst of suing the beverage company in an effort to get
a new environmental impact report.
More wildfires. Hotter days. Drought. Sea-level rise. Those
conditions are an increasing reality in California, which is
steadily becoming an altered state. But if the grimmest
predictions of experts about our state and climate change
become true, the conditions will become far worse.
Current and future climate change effects are intensifying the
hydrological cycle, leading to increased variability of both
precipitation and runoff. This heightened pattern results in
more frequent and severe droughts and floods, as well as more
recurrent swings between these two extremes. Harvesting
floodwaters using managed aquifer recharge to replenish
depleted groundwater aquifers can simultaneously reduce flood
and drought risks.
A state appeals court has upheld California’s cleanup standards
for a cancer-causing chemical that was added to pesticides and
has polluted groundwater in the Central Valley, rejecting
challenges by manufacturers that may have to pay the costs. The
State Water Resources Control Board’s 2017 mandate for removing
nearly all TCP (1,2,3-trichloropropane) from drinking water was
contested by the California Manufacturers and Technology
Association, representing Dow Chemical Co. and Shell Oil, which
included the chemical in worm-killing fumigants widely used by
farmers through the 1980s.
Millions of people are betting on Arizona. They’re buying
homes, starting businesses, and families. The future of how we
use our water resources may dictate the future of their
success. … That question was addressed four decades earlier
with the Groundwater Management Act of 1980. The idea was the
law would ensure when water was taken out, just as much was put
back in, creating what they called a safe yield goal by
2025. Unfortunately, a new study released by ASU
researchers with the Kyl Center shows the law is not living up
to its promise as deep, thousands of years old aquifers
continue to be over-pumped.
California Governor Gavin Newsom on May 14 unveiled
his May budget revision that allocates $200
million to plug abandoned and orphaned oil and gas wells, many
located near low-income residential areas where the majority of
residents are Latino and Black. In January
2020, a report by the California Council on
Science & Technology revealed that California taxpayers could
be on the hook for more than $500 million to plug thousands of
“orphan” wells drilled and abandoned by oil and gas companies.
.. Plugging all 107,000 oil and wells in California when
they become idle would cost more than $9 billion, the
report also found.
Construction on 8 miles of water pipeline that will be serve as
life-blood for the Pure Water Soquel Project, is set to begin
on May 24 in Santa Cruz. Three distinct components of building
are set to take place during the next several months. From late
May until June 15 crews will work around California Street,
from the Santa Cruz Wastewater Treatment Facility to Laurel
Street. After that, and until around July 6, construction will
take place on Laurel Street to Chestnut Street. The third
scheduled construction phase will run from July 6 through Aug.
12 on Chestnut to the west end of the Laurel Street Bridge.
California — already in the clutches of another drought
emergency — is looking over its shoulder at what happened
last time, anticipating the worst and evaluating the strategies
that worked and those that failed. So is California in a
better position to weather this drought? Some things are
worse, some better: Groundwater is still being pumped with no
statewide limits, siphoning up drinking water that rural
communities rely on. In northern counties, residents are
reliving the last disaster as water restrictions kick in again,
but in the south, enough water is stored to avoid them for now.
… The upshot is California isn’t ready — again.
San Diego’s vulnerability to water shortages and drought is
shrinking significantly because residents and businesses are
using less water and city officials are boosting the local
supply. A new city analysis shows local water use dropped
sharply from 81.5 billion gallons in 2007 to about 57 billion
gallons in 2020, even though the city’s population has grown
about 1 percent per year over that time. The new data has
prompted city officials to revise downward long-term
projections of local water use by about 20 percent compared to
their estimates from 2015, the last time the city conducted
such an analysis.
Nancy Smith remembered that children had called it “the sick
land” — the wedge of property alongside the 110 Freeway where a
dry cleaning facility had laundered aprons and uniforms for
decades across from a Lincoln Heights elementary school.
… Decades after the old Welch’s laundry was shuttered,
California regulators worked to clean up the soil and check the
groundwater for the chemicals used there — volatile
organic compounds such as tetrachloroethylene that could damage
the human liver and nervous system and have
been tied to an increased risk of cancer. The Department
of Toxic Substances Control oversaw a cleanup effort that
lasted for years and has continued to monitor groundwater at
the site.
Last year, for the first time, it became possible to trade
water on Wall Street through futures contracts. Normally
reserved for commodities like oil or precious metals, water
became the latest asset to join the financial market. But how
could this practice impact the planet? The trading in the
future prices of highly-prized commodities, where buyers agree
to purchase an asset at a set date in the future for an agreed
price, began in Japan in the seventeenth century with the
trading in rice futures. The latest commodity to begin trading
in futures is water supplied in American’s most populous state,
California.
Earth’s surface is ever changing. Sinkholes swallow
neighborhoods, river deltas slowly slide beneath the waves, and
fertile fields lose elevation as farmers draw large amounts of
water for irrigation from underlying aquifers. [T]hese
phenomena are known as subsidence … Building heavy
structures such as homes, skyscrapers, and even entire cities
also can trigger subsidence, explains Tom Parsons, a
geophysicist at the US Geological Survey in Moffett Field, CA.
Recently, he used computer simulations to estimate the effect
of San Francisco and its metropolitan area—where he and 7.75
million other people reside—on Earth’s crust.
The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agricultural
Statistics Service (NASS) is forecasting another record almond
crop for California. The 2021 California Almond Subjective
Forecast estimates a three percent increase from last year’s
3.12-billion-pound crop. According to USDA-NASS, California
growers could be looking at a 2021 crop of 3.2 billion pounds.
If that number comes to fruition, it would be the largest
almond crop on record.
Less than a week after Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a drought
emergency for Northern California, Folsom Lake is standing at
one of its lowest levels ever. … Ryan Ojakian is
with the Regional Water Authority (RWA). Now, there’s a push
from the RWA for its 20 water providers that serve about 2
million people in the Sacramento region to shift to using more
groundwater than surface water to reduce reliance on Folsom
Lake and the Lower American River.
A permit has been granted by Tehama County for the
establishment of a new groundwater monitoring station located
at the Corning Public Works maintenance yard on Gallagher
Avenue near Highway 99W. During a presentation on the project
to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors, county Public Works
Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert said there will be no cost
to the county as the yard is owned by Tehama County, and
drilling, installation and construction costs will be paid for,
and performed, by the California Department of Water Resources.
Rural, low-income Latino communities across California were
hardest hit by the last drought and could see drinking water
shortages again this year as extreme drought spreads across the
state, according to a report released Thursday by non-partisan
advisors to California’s lawmakers. The report from the
Legislative Analyst’s Office warns state officials to prepare
by ramping up monitoring of wells in vulnerable communities and
lining up emergency drinking water supplies to send
there.
In 1980, Arizona began regulating groundwater in the state’s
largest cities and suburbs under a landmark law that
called for most of these areas to achieve an overarching
goal by 2025: a long-term balance between the amount of
water pumped from the ground and the amount seeping back
underground to replenish aquifers. Forty-one years
later … [g]roundwater is still overpumped in most of the
state’s “active-management areas,” or AMAs. And in many places,
aquifer levels continue to decline.
Beavers, known for their work ethic, tenacity and sometimes
destructive instincts, are making a comeback in the worlds of
science and water as researchers look for natural ways to
restore rivers and wetlands and improve the health of
drought-stressed aquifers. … This fall, Colorado Headwaters,
a nonprofit that advocates for protecting and restoring
headwater regions in the state, is sponsoring a beaver summit,
a conference designed to unveil some of the latest ecological
research on creatures once valued only for their glossy fur.
On its surface, the idea of banking water to bridge the
certainty of future rain-deficient periods seems like an
innovative and non-controversial planning procedure. In the
end, however, it all depends on who holds the keys to the bank.
The notion of water banking has grabbed local attention lately
following a controversial and divided 3-2 vote March 3 by San
Luis Obispo County supervisors, a vote which numerous North
County entities view as opening the door to selling and
exporting county water resources to the highest outside bidder.
A federal agency Wednesday forecast a record harvest of 3.2
billion pounds of almonds in California. That would be a 3%
increase over 2020 for the nuts, the highest-grossing crop in
Stanislaus and several other counties. The report will set the
tone for the global almond trade, since California accounts for
about 80% of the supply. Several thousand people work on farms
and in processing plants in the Central Valley.
Ben Tobin has questions about the Grand Canyon’s caves. The
University of Kentucky geologist started learning about caves
as a young man, in part because his mother was a geologist, and
a childhood fascination grew over time. … When he was in
college, an internship in Arkansas doing cave tours got him
hooked, and eventually his work brought him out West, to Grand
Canyon National Park. Tobin specializes in what’s known as
karst hydrology. These are underground systems made up of
soluble rock such as limestone. To Tobin, caves are like
another world, with blind animals, fossils and archeological
finds.
When Sandra Chavez’ mother discovered she had stage four cancer
last year, one of Sandra’s first thoughts was about their
water. Her family’s private well is contaminated with nitrates
and Chavez wondered if years of drinking the water could have
caused her mother’s sickness. Chavez and her family have relied
on bottled water since they found out their well water was
unsafe in 2015. But sometimes they don’t have enough and are
forced to drink the contaminated water. So when Chavez
found out about a new program providing free bottled water
delivery for families with nitrate-contaminated wells, she was
frustrated she hadn’t been contacted.
A riverbed that has been parched since the end of the
19th century — a portion of the historic lifeblood of the
Gila River Indian Community — is now coursing again with water,
luring things like cattails and birds back to its
shores. … The revival of this small segment of the
649-mile (1045-kilometer) Gila River, which has served the
tribes that make up the Gila River Indian Community — the
Akimel O’odham (Pima) and the Pee-Posh (Maricopa) — for roughly
2,000 years, was an added benefit of a grassroots
infrastructure overhaul, known as “managed aquifer recharge,”
or MAR, which aimed to restore the local groundwater
basin.
Well owners in Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley are invited to join community meetings on groundwater
conditions and sustainable management of this critical water
source. The Santa Rosa Plain, Petaluma Valley and Sonoma
Valley groundwater sustainability agencies (GSAs) are nearing
completion of major plans that identify issues with current and
future groundwater resources and that describe how these
challenges will be addressed.
At the April meeting of the California Water Commission, the
Commission continued examining the state’s role in conveyance
projects by hearing from two experts on flood-managed aquifer
recharge, or Flood MAR. First, Dr. Graham Fogg, UC David
professor emeritus of Hydrogeology, discussed scaling up Flood
MAR and how that will likely present new conveyance
needs. Then, Jenny Marr, Supervising Engineer at the
Department of Water Resources, outlined the state’s approach to
flood Mar.
Governor Gavin Newsom announced an expansion of the drought
emergency to 41 of the state’s 58 counties, dedicating $5.1
billion to boost water infrastructure and an additional $1
billion to paying off nearly the entirety of Californian
household water debt. Yet, while the governor’s plan includes
$150 million for groundwater cleanup and water recycling
measures, it does nothing to speed up the process to bring
overdrafted water basins into full and sustainable operation.
The deadline is currently 2040 for critically overdrafted
basins and 2042 for remaining high and medium priority basins.
Spring is generally a time of renewal for the watersheds of the
western United States. Warmed by the lengthening days, the
region’s towering mountain ranges shed their mantle of snow,
releasing freshets of water into welcoming streams and
reservoirs. This year, though, the cycle is in disarray.
Outside of the Olympic and Cascade ranges of Washington state,
winter snows were subpar. The spring melt has been a dud. From
the Klamath to the Colorado and Rio Grande, watersheds are
under stress once again, and water managers face difficult
tradeoffs between farms, fisheries, and at-home uses.
State water agencies, the California Water Data Consortium
(Consortium) and Environmental Defense Fund (EDF) announced a
new partnership today to make an open-source groundwater
accounting platform freely available to help groundwater
sustainability agencies manage the transition to sustainable
supplies.
The state is facing major water impacts, but for those reliant
on water wells — in mobile home parks, rural communities, and
areas where water district access is limited — the concern is
growing. The Department of Water Resources has created
a website that can help those who rely on well water
to figure out just how much at-risk they are of a water
shortage. The site was created after the last drought, but
with California’s drought only recently worsening, it had not
been widely used or needed until now. The interactive map
allows users to explore their area and keep tabs on their well
water situation.
Many dryland cities like Los Angeles, Cairo and Tehran have
already outstripped natural water recharge, but are expected to
continue growing, resulting in a deepening arid urban water
crisis. … The situations in arid and semi-arid cities
like Phoenix, Arizona; Bamako, Mali; or Dubai, UAE, differ in
their particulars, but rhyme in their impending disastrous
trajectory. These, and other arid-region cities, are
approaching the edge of an ecological cliff: dependent on
sustaining growth, which itself requires a growth in water
supplied by faraway and finite sources, and delivered by aging
infrastructure. But water in dryland regions is
getting scarcer and supplies
more unpredictable.
In water-stressed farming areas of California, farmers removed
productive trees and idled other land to divert what little
water they have to other crops, as the reality of the 2021
drought became ever more apparent. “We’re removing 15-year-old,
prime-production almond trees,” said Daniel Hartwig of Woolf
Farming in Fresno County. “We’re pulling out almost 400 acres,
simply because there’s not enough water in the system to
irrigate them, and long term, we have no confidence that there
would be water in the future.”
California is now in its second year of drought, hard on the
heels of the last one in 2012-16. But drought is not an
equal-opportunity crisis; it can be more or less disruptive
depending on geography, storage, how water supplies are
managed—and, of course, precipitation. And some sectors—notably
rural water water systems and the environment—are more
vulnerable.
As California enters what could be a record-breaking drought, a
just-completed nine-year floodplain restoration project at the
confluence of the San Joaquin and Tuolumne rivers offers an
ambitious attempt at one mitigation solution. At a 1,600-acre
former dairy ranch called Dos Rios, the conservation
organization River Partners removed berms that farmers had
originally constructed to protect their alfalfa and wheat crops
from the river. It turned fields into seasonal pools where
endangered baby salmon and migratory birds can rest, and water
can trickle down to refill aquifers.
A water district locked in a long-running legal battle over
residential rates with the city of Ventura recently agreed
to pay $1 million, but the fight does not appear to
be over. City Attorney Gregory Diaz said Friday he
expected the United Water Conservation District to
exercise its option to appeal. Ventura has filed lawsuits every
year against the water district since the agency implemented
increased charges in 2011-12. This settlement is for fiscal
year 2019-20. The district charged residential customers
three times more than agricultural customers for groundwater,
and the city challenged its methodology.
As California slowly emerges from the depths of the COVID-19
pandemic, one remnant left behind by the statewide lockdown
offers a sobering reminder of the economic challenges still
ahead for millions of the state’s residents and the water
agencies that serve them – a mountain of water debt.
… Our latest article in Western Water explores the
hurdles to helping consumers, how some water agencies have
devised workarounds and how far more lasting solutions remain
out of reach.Western Water is just one of the publications
produced by our journalism team…
In scale and ambition, California’s Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act (SGMA) has few parallels. And the work becomes
increasingly urgent as the climate crisis makes water shortages
increasingly severe. … This emphasis on local expertise
points to SGMA’s possibilities — and its potential pitfalls —
especially when it comes to deciding what “sustainable” water
management means. Each management body has wide discretion to
define “sustainability” — and the path to
sustainability by 2040 — for its particular basin.
San Diego takes droughts very seriously. That’s why the region
is well-positioned to weather an extended dry spell with enough
water. Local officials don’t shrug at the drought
conditions across the state that have triggered emergencies in
a couple of northern counties. For one thing, the wildfire
threat can be as dangerous here as anywhere. San Diego may
be more drought-tolerant than in the past when it comes to
water…
Water customers with the Pajaro Valley Water Management Agency
can expect rate increases to kick in over the next five years,
after board members voted in late April to approve the fees.
The PVWMA serves coastal growers and farmers in south Santa
Cruz and north Monterey counties through 21 miles of water
pipelines running near Highway 1. The water, which is a blend
of recycled water, groundwater and Harkins Slough Recovery well
water, supplements farmer’s on-site agricultural wells.
A new groundwater monitoring station is coming to Corning’s
public works yard on Gallagher Avenue just across from a
warehouse that stores various road signs and equipment. Public
Works Flood Control Manager Ryan Teubert presented the project
Tuesday to the Tehama County Board of Supervisors. It consists
of construction at the yard, which will be funded and performed
by the California Department of Water Resources.
The San Luis Obispo County Board of Supervisors sent a letter
to the California Water Resources Control Board on May 4
formally opposing the Shandon-San Juan Water District’s (SSJWD)
two recent applications for water from Lake Nacimiento and
Santa Margarita Lake—a move that puts two partners on the Paso
Robles Groundwater Basin at odds with one another.
Pregnant women exposed to too much nitrate in their drinking
water are at greater risk of giving birth prematurely,
according to a Stanford University study of more than 1.4
million California births. Agricultural runoff containing
fertilizer and animal waste can greatly increase the nitrate
level in groundwater, which naturally contains a low level of
the chemical. … The strongest effects of nitrate on
prematurity risk were seen in California’s agricultural
regions, including the San Joaquin Valley and the Inland
Empire, the study noted. A higher proportion of births in
these areas are to Hispanic women than in other regions of the
state …
A big change in drought conditions came out Thursday
morning for all of California. With an update from
the US Drought Monitor, 73% of California is now listed in
Extreme Drought, the second most severe classification the US
Drought Monitor utilizes. So far, 5% of California is
listed as being in Exceptional Drought, which is the US Drought
Monitor’s top-level drought designation. The increase to
73% is a significant jump from 53% in Extreme Drought from last
week. This news comes on the heels of other drought changes,
such as water restrictions for agriculture north of the
Delta.
Gov. Doug Ducey has asked the U.S. Department of Defense (DOD)
to address groundwater contamination near military
installations in Arizona. In an Apr. 27 letter to Secretary of
Defense Lloyd Austin, Gov. Ducey requested DOD to identify and
treat water in Arizona contaminated in the areas surrounding
four DOD installations and to prevent additional human exposure
to per-and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) from other DOD
facilities in Arizona, which impact the groundwater. … These
bases are located in the two most populous metropolitan areas
in Arizona and each is surrounded by thousands of Arizonans who
rely on clean groundwater for drinking water purposes.
The fate of Searles Valley Minerals may hinge on a special
virtual meeting of the Indian Wells Valley Groundwater
Authority later this week, at least according to SVM’s Camille
Anderson. The meeting is scheduled for 10 a.m. Thursday. At it,
the IWVGA will discuss how to respond to SVM’s non-payment of
the authority’s groundwater replenishment fee. … The
groundwater authority was formed in response to the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Act of 2014, which requires all
California basins to eventually achieve
sustainability. The replenishment fee is part of the
IWVGA’s long-term plan to reach sustainability, but has proven
wildly controversial for some.
When Ramona Hernandez turns on her kitchen faucet in El Adobe,
an unincorporated town just a few miles southeast of
Bakersfield, the water that splashes out looks clean and
inviting. But she doesn’t dare drink it. … Drinking the
tap water in this tiny community of dusty ranches and unpaved
roads could expose Hernandez to arsenic. So, for years, she and
her husband, Gerardo, have shuttled twice a week to the nearby
town of Lamont to load up on bottled water. At a cost of about
$80 a month, it’s enough for drinking and cooking.
California’s current drought is already off to a strong start,
with some major challenges already looming just two years in.
Compared to the drought of 2012‒16, the normally wetter
Sacramento and North Coast regions have been hit much harder
than the rest of the state. Beyond the local challenges this
poses, drought in the Sacramento region is already having
statewide implications, given its key role in supplying water
to farms and cities further south.
With drought conditions returning to California, the Department
of Water Resources (DWR) has finalized a tool and
recommendations to support those communities most at risk
during drought. Historically, small water systems and rural
communities that rely on private domestic wells have
been hit the hardest by prolonged periods of dry
conditions. To provide increased state support, DWR led a
two-year process learning from stakeholder experiences about
what puts small water systems and rural communities at higher
risk of water shortages and what is needed to build their
resilience to drought.
Increasingly ominous signs suggest that we are entering another
multiyear drought in California. The State Water Project
recently reduced projected water deliveries for 2021 from 10
percent of requested supplies to 5 percent, and on April 21,
Gov. Gavin Newsom declared a regional drought emergency in the
Russian River watershed in Northern California. But it’s a
different story in San Diego County.
-Written by Gary Croucher, chair of the San Diego County
Water Authority’s Board of Directors.
The beaver does more to shape its environment than nearly any
other animal on Earth. They can cause incredible amounts of
destruction to infrastructure; downing power lines, and
blocking and rerouting waterways. But their dam-building also
can improve water quality, reduce flood risk, and create the
conditions for complex wetland habitats to form —providing
refuge for wildlife and storing carbon in the process.
A little more than a week ago, Gov. Gavin Newsom announced that
not only would California effectively ban hydraulic fracturing,
or fracking, by 2024, but the state also would work to phase
out oil extraction entirely by 2045. … It was — like the
governor’s promise last year that the state would ban the sale
of new gas-powered cars by 2035 — a sweeping pronouncement
meant to show urgency in addressing climate change while the
state he leads struggles with many of its most dire effects.
But meeting those goals requires complex regulatory
maneuvering.
Wild horses and donkeys are often considered a problem in the
American West, but new research suggests their penchant for
digging wells with their hooves offers benefits to the
ecosystems they inhabit, reports Douglas Main for National
Geographic. The study, published this week in the journal
Science, shows that when wild or feral horses and donkeys dig
wells, they increase the availability of water for other
species living in the parched desert landscape. These wells can
be up to six feet deep and provide access to groundwater to
species including badgers, mountain lions, deer and birds.
Climate change and water scarcity are front and center in the
western U.S. The region’s climate is warming, a severe
multi-year drought is underway and groundwater supplies are
being overpumped in many locations. … About 4,000
miles of canals transport water to some 35 million
Californians and 5.7 million acres of farmland across the
state. Covering these canals with solar panels would reduce
evaporation of precious water – one of California’s most
critical resources – and help meet the state’s renewable energy
goals, while also saving money.
On March 24, 2021, the Groundwater Resources Association of
California and California Groundwater Coalition hosted the
virtual 2021 Groundwater Law & Legislation Forum, featuring a
keynote address from California’s Natural Resources Secretary
Wade Crowfoot and updates on pending groundwater legislation,
DWR’s SGMA implementation, and ACWA’s position on potential
bond measures. One panel focused on the intersection of
environmental justice, groundwater management and the role the
legislative process can play…
Water talk will be a big part of Tuesday’s Tehama County Board
of Supervisors meeting as plans for a new groundwater
monitoring site in Corning are coming to fruition. Tehama
County Public Works plans to sign a Permit to Use Land
Agreement for a groundwater station in the Corning Public Works
yard on Gallagher Avenue, should the board approve the request.
Creating and maintaining the station will be a combined effort
of Tehama County Public Works, the Flood Control and Water
Conservation District and the California Department of Water
Resources. According to the related agenda report, the station
is expected to be in use for a minimum of 20 years.
British journalist James Bartholomew is widely credited with
creating the phrase “virtue signaling” to describe positioning
oneself on the popular side of an issue without actually doing
anything about it. Politicians are particularly prone to
uttering words or making token efforts on difficult issues to
stave off criticism about their failure to act meaningfully.
Gov. Gavin Newsom is California’s champion virtue-signaler as
he faces a recall election later this year. … There’s no
better example than Newsom’s ever-shifting attitude toward
hydraulic fracturing to increase petroleum production. -Written by Dan Walters
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) is awarding funding
support for six projects to address the impact of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA). A total of $26
million in grant funding is being made available for the SGMA
projects. The funding support comes from the Sustainable
Groundwater Management Grant Program. Sixteen individual
construction projects within Critically Overdrafted Basins will
take place through the six grant awards.
This weekend’s rain in Northern California, while welcome, did
little to address the dry conditions across our state. As the
state’s recent dismal snow survey showed, we are in for tough
times ahead. Less snow means lower reservoirs, less water in
our rivers and streams, and more groundwater pumping. And that
spells trouble, particularly for disadvantaged communities and
sensitive ecosystems, which have historically borne the brunt
of California drought in consequences like dry wells and salmon
die-offs.
Climate change and drought will impact San Diego County’s
climate future, but regional water supply planning and
adaptation measures will ensure a safe, reliable supply for the
region. Water supply strategy was one of the key points
participants learned about during a Monday panel discussion,
“San Diego County’s Climate Future,” hosted online by the San
Diego County Water Authority, Citizens Water Academy, Leaders
20/20 and San Diego Green Drinks.
Amid the extreme aridity of the vast Colorado Desert of eastern
San Diego County, a ribbon of greenery allows life to thrive.
The Sentenac Cienega area inside Anza-Borrego Desert State Park
is more than 100 miles southeast of Irvine. It contains a
desert wetland, which is part of the San Felipe Creek watershed
that is fed by nearby mountains and ultimately flows into the
Salton Sea. But the wetland is sick from invasive, non-native
plants, and its water levels are dangerously low. Researchers
from UCI are trying to figure out why.
Monterey One Water officials on Monday moved closer to its goal
of providing additional water for the Monterey Peninsula when
it unanimously approved a key environmental report for its
expansion project. The 10 members of the board of Monterey One
Water all voted to approve an environmental document called a
supplemental environmental impact report, or SEIR, that
advances closer to the expansion of its regional treatment
plant. … Monday’s action allows Monterey One to move
closer to expanding its treatment facility — Pure Water
Monterey — to increase the amount of treated water reintroduced
to groundwater and consequently dramatically increase the
Peninsula’s supply.
No one will forget the intense challenges that 2020 brought us,
from record-breaking hurricanes and wildfires to a global
pandemic that devastated our economy and public health. As
Congress and the Biden administration look to help our country
rebuild and recover from these compounding crises, investing in
nature presents an opportunity to deliver multiple benefits for
communities, birds, and other wildlife. Audubon presents a new
suite of policy recommendations for making our communities and
wildlife more resilient to climate change, by putting our
wetlands, barrier islands, and other ecosystems to work.
Millions of drinking wells around the world may soon be at risk
of running dry. Overpumping, drought and the steady influence
of climate change are depleting groundwater resources all over
the globe, according to new research. As much as 20% of the
world’s groundwater wells may be facing imminent failure,
potentially depriving billions of people of fresh water.
… Residents of California’s Central Valley are preparing
for another arid summer and the rising risk of dry
wells, The Fresno Bee reported yesterday. It’s a
recurring pattern there.
Hydraulic fracturing has occurred in California and nationwide
for decades; however, recent advancements in horizontal
drilling technologies and “well stimulation” techniques have
been instrumental in triggering an oil and gas boom, making the
U.S. the world’s largest producer of oil and gas
reserves. California produces more oil than all but three
other states (Texas, North Dakota and Alaska), and Kern County
is responsible for more than 70 percent of the state’s oil
production. Environmentalists and other members of the
public became concerned that the hydraulic fracturing process
may contaminate groundwater aquifers …
CZU Lightning Complex fire survivors who are rebuilding their
homes, are invited to join the Santa Cruz County Office of
Response, Recovery and Resilience on Saturday for a townhall on
the septic and water permitting process. … Attendees can
expect to learn about septic and water system permitting
requirements, but also county and state-level regulations that
apply to their properties. … The Office of Response, Recovery
and Resilience works with fire survivors on an
individual-basis, to help them understand what is needed
to ultimately, get a rebuild permit.
On Friday, California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) unveiled a new
initiative to ban new and future permits for hydraulic fracking
beginning in 2024. The ban is part of California’s effort to
move away from oil extraction to source fuel, focusing on
developing renewable sources such as wind and solar. Fracking,
or hydraulic fracturing, is the sourcing of oil from deep
subterranean rocks, using a high-pressured water mixture
drilled into the earth that releases natural gas and oil.
With a snowpack at 20-percent of normal, as of April 1, Inyo
County and the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power begin
a month of discussion over the proposed pumping plan for the
2021-22 run-off year. LADWP intends to pump from 64,600 to
78,980 acre-feet of water from well fields in the Owens Valley.
Inyo’s Water Commission will meet this evening at 6 p.m. for
its initial discussion of the plan, laid out with proposed
volumes from Laws to Lone Pine.
For years it’s been relatively easy to measure pollution from,
say, a factory. At a factory, there might be just one pipe of
waste to measure. Easy enough. But what about a farm? We
might not typically think of farms as sources of pollution. But
they can have big impacts on the land over time. Unlike at a
factory, the waste filters slowly through soil across
the whole plot of land. This waste—excess nutrients from
fertilizer—can eventually reach groundwater.
As drought realities set in, money is flowing to water
authorities to fix wells and watersheds. Fresno and Madera
water sources will get their piece of $26 million in grants
from the State of California’s Department of Water Resources,
according to a press release from the agency. The money is
intended to go toward overdrafted groundwater basins that
communities rely on during times of drought. … Sixteen
individual construction projects will be funded in the Central
Valley.
California is in the second year of a drought. Governor Newsom
this week made his first drought declaration. Just how dry is
this drought, so far? What are some likely
implications? And what might State and local governments
do about it?
News of drought and climate change impacts on Arizona’s water
supplies has become more alarming with the release of each new
study. To prepare for a drier future, Arizona will need an
informed public. For help in understanding the state’s water
management situation, a brief new reference work is now
available from the University of Arizona Water Resources
Research Center.
The Department of Water Resources (DWR) today awarded $26
million in grant funding for capital project investments to
improve water supply security, water quality and the
reliability of domestic wells – advancing access to safe,
affordable drinking water. This funding provides
important assistance for successful local implementation of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), which
establishes a framework for managing the state’s groundwater
resources and will help California be better prepared for
longer, more severe droughts.
California Governor Gavin Newsom declared drought in two
counties Wednesday and predicted others would soon join. He
bemoaned the prospect of another period of drought only a few
years removed from a five-year drought that strained the
state’s water resources. A study published this week in
Science Advances revealed one solution to the drought-like
conditions and their increased frequency due to a changing
climate is a counterintuitive one — floodwaters.
Gov. Gavin Newsom directed the state Friday to stop issuing
permits for the oil extraction method known as fracking by
January 2024 and to draw up plans to end all fossil-fuel
drilling in California by 2045 — the most sweeping declaration
of its kind in the nation. … Eliminating all extraction would
have far-reaching consequences in California, the nation’s
seventh-largest producer of crude oil… [Fracking
has] long been a controversial method because of what
climate activists see as unacceptable dangers, including the
possibility that it can contaminate groundwater.
Thousands of wells that bring water to San Joaquin Valley homes
are at risk of drying up this summer, leaving families without
running water for drinking, cleaning and bathing. While no one
knows the extent of the threat from this second year of drought
conditions, Jonathan Nelson with the Community Water Center
says “the alarm bells are sounding.” Homes, farms and
entire communities that rely on shallow wells as their only
source of water are vulnerable to declining groundwater levels
from dry conditions and agricultural pumping.
A new technique using dissolved noble gas tracers sheds light
on how water moves through an aquifer, with implications for
water resources and their vulnerability to climate change.
… These changes, in addition to other strains including
increasing population pressure and contamination from past and
present industry and agriculture, will affect the flow of
rivers, water quality, and groundwater storage.
The Central Valley in California is a farming powerhouse,
growing more than 250 crops and producing $17 billion of
agricultural products every year to feed the world. The
competing demands of both agriculture and a growing local
population — along with droughts made worse by the climate
crisis — have put a dramatic strain on the local wells
supplying groundwater for both the farmers and rural residents.
… In short: the wells are literally running
dry. According to a new study, the
same groundwater problem plaguing the Central Valley
is occurring around the world, threatening the drinking water
of billions of people.
Turlock residents impacted by nitrate groundwater contamination
will soon be supplied with safe drinking water as the state
seeks out more permanent solutions. The Central Valley
Regional Water Quality Control Board is leading the charge on a
program which will provide bottled water deliveries or
bottle-filling kiosks to six geographic zones deemed to have
the most-serious groundwater contamination issues. The
Turlock Subbasin has been identified as a Priority 1 zone by
the board and is one of the two largest zones included in the
program.
If the Midwest is the breadbasket of America, then California
is its produce section. Two-thirds of the nation’s fruits and
nuts and more than one-third of its vegetables are produced in
the Golden State. But California’s abundance is threatened by
wildfires, extreme weather and chronic drought — the effects of
climate change.
A new report is highlighting the gaps in California’s water
infrastructure — and how much money the state will need to fix
it. The report, published by the state’s Water Resources
Control Board, found that 620 public water systems and 80,000
domestic wells are at risk of failing to provide affordable and
uncontaminated water, a problem that California will need
$4.7 billion of extra funding to solve. The report includes the
first-ever analysis of the state’s domestic wells — a common
water source for rural communities. Threats to these systems
are often poorly understood due to lack of good data.
Floodwaters are not what most people consider a blessing. But
they could help remedy California’s increasingly parched
groundwater systems, according to a new Stanford-led study.
The research, published in Science Advances, develops
a framework to calculate future floodwater volumes under a
changing climate and identifies areas where investments in
California’s aging water infrastructure could amplify
groundwater recharge.
Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a drought emergency for
Sonoma and Mendocino counties, but resisted calls to issue a
statewide proclamation — at least for now. Newsom’s emergency
order primarily affects communities and water districts in the
Russian River watershed, which includes the cities of Santa
Rosa, Ukiah and Sebastopol. Some 360,000 people live in the
area.
[A] study, titled “Freshwater Salinization Syndrome on a
Continental Scale,” found at least a third of U.S. streams and
rivers have become saltier over the last 25 years. On December
3, freshwater scientist John Olson of California State
University, Monterey Bay, conducted a modeling study that
validated these results, indicating that the future looks briny
as well. The study is titled “Predicting Combined Effects of
Land Use and Climate Change On River and Stream Salinity.”
Salinization levels will likely increase by at least 50% in
half of U.S. streams by 2100 if salt use persists at its
current pace, according to Olson’s party.
The Water Association of Kern County’s annual Water Summit is
virtual this year but will still pack a punch of who’s who in
the water world. The day kicks off with an update on water
brought to the San Joaquin Valley via the federal Central
Valley Project. The speaker will be Deputy Bureau of
Reclamation Commissioner Camille Touton. Next will be an update
on the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act and where the
process is at this point. The speaker will be Steven
Springhorn, Acting Deputy Director Groundwater Management
Department of Water Resources.
[A]s massive a challenge as wildfire presents … a different
climate crisis could rival it as a destroyer of the California
dream: sea level rise. … AB 67 addresses state
infrastructure. It would ensure that state agencies incorporate
sea level rise estimates in the development of roads, ports,
airports, water-treatment, desalination and power plants. In
particular, it seeks to advance “natural infrastructure” such
as restored estuaries, wetlands, dunes and sea grasses that
could generate thousands of new “blue” jobs while reducing the
impact of rising water at a lower cost than hardened structures
such as seawalls. -Written by David Helvarg, an author and founder
of Blue Frontier, an ocean conservation group.
A new proposal to drill for natural gas in the East Bay has
environmentalists up in arms, and not just because it’s a
polluting fossil fuel. It’s the location that has people really
upset. That’s because it’s in the Suisun Marsh, the largest
marshland on the West Coast, a highly protected natural habitat
for migratory birds, fish and wildlife. … A dozen
environmental and community groups have submitted a letter
opposing a plan by Brentwood-based Sunset Explorations to build
an acre pad on private property in the marsh and drill an
exploratory gas well there.
Large areas of California farmland, particularly in the San
Joaquin Valley, face future restrictions on groundwater pumping
to meet the requirements of the Sustainable Groundwater
Management Act. We talked to Caity Peterson—an adjunct fellow
at the PPIC Water Policy Center and a consulting
agroecologist—about a joint research project* on the potential
for dryland farming to reduce the amount of land needed to be
retired from production to balance water budgets.
With a drought affecting the Western part of the country, here
are ten simple ways to conserve water this Earth Day: Turn off
the faucet while brushing your teeth; Fix leaky faucets; Only
run a fully loaded dishwasher or wash a full load of laundry;
Take a shorter shower; Consider installing a water-saving
shower head; Use a broom to clean your driveway instead of
hosing it down; Find a use for water instead of pouring it down
the drain…
Water law adjudication, already a complicated field, will only
become more so because of the climate crisis, extended
droughts, and increasing demand for groundwater in Nevada, the
Supreme Court was told last week. The court Friday held its
first meeting for the newly created commission to study the
adjudication of water law cases. Members of the commission
range from ranchers to conservationists to mining industry
representatives and scientists.
The release of last week’s Bureau of Reclamation 24-month study
felt like very bad news for the Colorado River (See Tony Davis
for details.). But a careful reading of the numbers, and an
understanding of the process through which they are developed,
suggests things are likely even worse than the top-line numbers
in the study. The problem: the assumptions underlying the study
do not fully capture the climate-change driven aridification of
the Colorado River Basin.
Borrego Springs, the small desert town at
the entrance to California’s sprawling Anza-Borrego
State Park, has won a judge’s approval for an
agreement under which large farmers, resort owners and
its own water district will slash water use by 74% by
2040. Officials say the cuts are needed to keep the town
of 3,000 alive.
California has entered another drought. But depending on who
you ask, the last one may have never really ended. Some
researchers believe the region is actually more than two
decades into an emerging “megadrought” — a hydrological event
that is on par with the worst dry spells of the past
millennium. Except this time, they say, human-caused climate
change is driving its severity — and will make it that much
harder to climb back out of.
A proposed $3.3 billion bond that proponents argue will
“accelerate California’s economic recovery and build a
healthier, more equitable and resilient food and farm system,”
cleared the Assembly Agriculture Committee …. $75
million is earmarked for groundwater protection, $50 million of
which would go to the Department of Conservation for grants to
groundwater sustainability agencies, counties and others “for
development or implementation of local programs supporting or
facilitating reduced use of groundwater and multi-benefit land
repurposing at the basin scale.”…The bill would go before
voters in the fall of 2022 if it clears the Legislature.
While high-profile surface-water initiatives like WaterFix and
the Delta Conveyance Project grab most of the headlines
pertaining to water management in the state, efforts to make
significant changes to the way groundwater is utilized have
been underway since 2014. Now, the state and the local water
agencies are seeking public comment on documents related to the
management of groundwater. In 2014, then-Gov. Jerry Brown
signed a three-bill legislative package collectively known as
the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA) to better
manage groundwater supplies over the long term.
California was the first U.S. state to legally recognize access
to safe, clean and affordable water as a human right. But
substantial parts of the state lack access to drinking water
that meets those criteria. A new study published by the
California State Water Board and supported by UCLA research
identifies a risk for failure among a significant portion of
the state’s small and medium-sized public water systems.
As the latest evidence of extended drought and extreme wildfire
danger confirms, California’s climate is changing quickly. Its
policy on burning planet-warming fuels — not so much. A
state Senate bill to ban hydraulic fracturing and otherwise
restrict oil and gas extraction died in its first committee
Tuesday, with Gov. Gavin Newsom and three Democratic lawmakers
withholding support.
Santa Barbara County’s most depleted water basin, the Cuyama
Valley, is fast becoming the latest battleground in the fight
over how — and whether — to address the negative impacts of the
lucrative cannabis industry on farming and residential
communities. The giant groundwater basin underlying this
sparsely populated, heavily farmed, economically depressed
valley is one of California’s 21 most critically over-drafted
basins and the only one outside the Central Valley.
The state plans to inspect three dairy ranches in the Point
Reyes National Seashore after independent water quality tests
conducted in nearby creeks and lagoons earlier this year found
E. coli bacteria concentrations up to 40 times higher than
state health standards. The San Francisco Regional Water
Quality Control Board plans to inspect Kehoe Dairy, McClure
Dairy and R&J McClelland Dairy, which are located near
Kehoe Creek and waterways that flow into Abbotts Lagoon in the
northern region of the national seashore.
A far-reaching proposal to outlaw hydraulic fracturing and ban
oil and gas wells from operating near homes, schools and
healthcare facilities failed in the California Legislature on
Tuesday, a major setback for progressive leaders who hail the
state as the nation’s bellwether on environmental protection.
Gov. Gavin Newsom in September called on state lawmakers to ban
fracking and voiced his support for safety buffer zones around
wells …
A new state analysis estimates a $4.6 billion funding gap for
water system infrastructure needed to ensure Californians have
access to safe and affordable drinking water. The State Water
Resources Control Board this month released the first-ever
drinking water needs assessment, showing that approximately 620
public water systems and 80,000 domestic wells are at-risk of
failing to provide a sufficient amount of drinking water that
meets basic health standards.
Advocates, such as the Colorado Water Trust, a nonprofit that
spearheaded the new approach, say the tools can be used as
templates across other river basins, where older water rights
are already spoken for. … Across Colorado nearly 40,000
miles of streams flow year-round and, as a result, have the
potential to receive protection under the state’s Instream Flow
Program.
There’s just one week left to register for our Water 101
Workshop, which offers a primer on the things you need to know
to understand California water. One of our most popular events,
this once-a-year workshop will be held as an engaging online
event on the afternoons of Thursday, April 22 and Friday,
April 23.
The San Joaquin Valley’s quest for groundwater sustainability
will result in large amounts of irrigated agricultural lands
being retired. A new book explores how some of these lands
could be restored to natural areas that bring multiple
benefits. We talked to Scott Butterfield, a senior scientist at
The Nature Conservancy and one of the book’s editors, about
this vision.
CITIZENS for a SUSTAINABLE HUMBOLDT (CSH) and the NORTHCOAST
ENVIRONMENTAL CENTER (NEC) have filed a lawsuit in the Humboldt
County Superior Court, with claims under the California
Environmental Quality, the State Planning and Zoning Law, and
other laws, challenging the environmental review and permits
approved by the Humboldt County Board of Supervisors.
It’s that time of year, when we find out it’s that kind of
year. We appear at the doorstep of a “critically dry
year,” and most reservoir levels are significantly below
average. Those conditions bring painfully to mind the awful
drought years of 2014 and 2015, and threaten water supplies for
California farms and cities, and for the protected fish species
that must also get by in these lean years. -Written by Danny Merkley, director of water resources, and
Chris Scheuring, senior counsel for the California Farm
Bureau.
The Suisun Marsh — known as the largest swath of contiguous
wetlands on the West Coast and a haven for thousands of
migrating waterfowl — has become the Bay Area’s latest
battleground between fossil fuel producers and
environmentalists hellbent on fighting climate change. A
Brentwood company, Sunset Exploration Inc., announced in
January it wants to explore for natural gas by drilling a
section of the 116,000-acre marshland about 9 miles southwest
of Suisun City in an area known as Hunter’s Point, according to
the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
The State Water Resources Control Board announced the
completion of its first-ever comprehensive look at California
water systems that are struggling to provide safe drinking
water to communities and how to help them. With criteria for
the state’s Human Right to Water list recently expanded, the
assessment identifies both failing water systems and those at
risk of failing, offering the most indepth view of long-term
drinking water safety the state has ever had.
Salinity has often become a major limit for irrigated
agriculture in semi-arid regions, from ancient Mesopotamia to
parts of California today. A previous blog post showed that
conjunctive use with more saline groundwater can differ
fundamentally from freshwater aquifers. Higher salinity limits
groundwater use for irrigation during dry years, when less
surface water is available to dilute groundwater salinity, and
increases aquifer pumping in wetter years to avoid
water-logging. Brackish groundwater can no longer serves as
drought storage, but becomes a supplemental water supply in all
years, limited by availability of fresh surface water for
diluting salts. This greatly reduces groundwater’s ability to
support permanent crops and increases variability in annual
crop acreage across different water years, thus reducing
profit.
Despite its green reputation, California has a big fossil fuel
problem on its hands: neighborhood oil and gas drilling. In
California, there’s nothing preventing frackers or drillers
from setting up shop right next to your home, school, or
hospital — and indeed, this is the reality for 7.4 million
Californians currently living within 1 mile of oil and gas
drilling operations, who are disproportionately non-white and
low-income. Now, a new state bill called S.B. 467, slated
for a hearing in the California Senate Committee on Natural
Resources and Water on Tuesday, may reshape the lives of
frontline communities by eliminating fracking and instituting
mandatory buffer zones between oil and gas extraction and
places where Californians live, work, and study.
Another legal challenge has been launched against a project by
downtown-based water infrastructure company Cadiz Inc. to pump
and transport water from its desert aquifer to connect with
existing water conveyance systems. This latest lawsuit was
filed March 23 against the Bureau of Land Management by the
Center for Biological Diversity, Earthjustice and the Sierra
Club. It asks the federal court to overturn a December BLM
decision to approve the conversion of an idle oil and gas
pipeline to carry water from Cadiz’s desert aquifer. Cadiz is
not a direct party to the lawsuit but would be impacted by a
decision resulting from the suit. The filing marks the third
decade in which Cadiz’ water transfer plan has faced legal
challenges from environmental groups.
Nearly every resident of California has experienced an
earthquake. Even the youngest schoolchildren have the safety
procedure drilled into them: duck under a table, hold on, and
pray that it’s only a small one. Barring a truly catastrophic
quake, the situation usually ends there. You go on with your
day as if nothing had happened, the near catastrophe completely
forgotten. Most people assume that the danger ends after the
last remnants of the tremor share the ground. But there is a
much more sinister side effect of earthquakes that affects
daily life around California and much of the rest of the world:
contaminating the groundwater supply.
Throughout 2020 and early 2021, California issued more than 300
permits to oil and gas companies for new underground injection
wells — an intensive form of oil production and wastewater
disposal. But the actual number of new injection wells is
likely higher, owing to the state’s opaque approval process
that has drawn scrutiny from auditors and environmentalists.
Some of these undercounted wells may be polluting groundwater
used for public drinking and agricultural purposes, according
to regulatory filings reviewed by Capital & Main. The impact of
injection wells on groundwater in California is understudied,
regulators say.
Groundwater is a key resource for water users in California’s
Central Valley, a major agricultural hub with an economic
output of tens of billions of dollars annually. Surface
deformation in the Central Valley has long been linked to
changes in groundwater storage, but the timing and movement of
water flow beneath the surface has been poorly understood due
to a lack of reliable data. Now, for the first time,
scientists at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps
Institution of Oceanography and School of Global Policy and
Strategy, as well as the U.S. Geological Survey are using
advanced satellite data to map the “pulse” of groundwater flow
through the San Joaquin Valley, the southern portion of the
Central Valley.
Despite market unknowns created by the pandemic and lower
commodity prices, California agricultural land values remained
largely stable, an indication buyers have confidence in the
long-term land market in the state: This was a key takeaway
from a virtual business conference held by the California
Chapter of the American Society of Farm Managers and Rural
Appraisers. The conference also discussed impacts of the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act on California land
values. Even though record supplies of the state’s
highest-value crops led to lower prices for farmers last year,
appraisers said the softer prices also helped move those
products.
While California’s landmark Sustainable Groundwater Management
Act promised comprehensive protection of the state’s
groundwater, significant gaps remain in its coverage. The
Department of Water Resources now has an opportunity to reduce
or eliminate those gaps and should seize the moment. We know
all Californians will experience another year of water
shortages and warmer, drier conditions that will require
conservation and which are likely to fuel destructive wildfires
in our forests and around our communities. We are all in this
together. Groundwater is critical for California, particularly
in dry years when it provides up to 60% of the water supply for
farms and people.
-Written by Jeanette Howard, director of The
Nature Conservancy’s freshwater science team; Melissa M.
Rohde, a groundwater scientist at The Nature Conservancy;
and Barton H. Thompson, senior fellow of the Woods Institute
for the Environment, and faculty director of Water in the West
at Stanford University.
The California Department of Water Resources (DWR) has marked
2021 as the third-driest water year, a period marked from
October to March, on record for the Golden State, potentially
setting up another deadly wildfire season after last year’s
record setting blazes. The department’s annual snow survey
released this month recorded precipitation levels at 50 percent
the annual average for the water year. The dry conditions
can also be seen in the state’s water supply, with the
department reporting that California’s major reservoirs are at
just 50 percent of overall capacity.
Rural water users are panicking over a proposal to create a
market for the sale and purchase of water rights in Nevada,
unconvinced by arguments that the concept would encourage
conservation. Lawmakers on Monday weighed whether so-called
“water banking” would be preferable to prevailing water law
doctrines that govern surface and groundwater rights disputes
in the driest state in the U.S. A legislative hearing about two
proposals to allow water rights holders to sell their
entitlements pitted state water bureaucrats against a coalition
of farmers, conservationists and rural officials.
California is at the edge of another protracted drought, just a
few years after one of the worst dry spells in state history
left poor and rural communities without well water, triggered
major water restrictions in cities, forced farmers to idle
their fields, killed millions of trees, and fueled devastating
megafires. … Just four years since the state’s last
drought emergency, experts and advocates say the state isn’t
ready to cope with what could be months and possibly years of
drought to come.
When Gov. Gavin Newsom voiced his support last year for a ban
on hydraulic fracturing by oil and gas companies, an effort
long fought by the industry and trade unions alike, he gave
Democrats a green light to send him legislation to achieve that
goal as they saw fit. But the crackdown on oil and gas
production under consideration by the California Legislature is
much wider in scope than the plan requested by the governor,
who may get more than he bargained for as he shoulders the
pressures of carrying out the state’s COVID-19 pandemic
response while battling a looming recall election. The
ambitious proposal would outlaw hydraulic fracturing, or
fracking, and a series of other oil extraction methods reviled
by environmental activists.
Water covers 71% of the earth’s surface, but only about 3%
percent of it is fresh water, making it the planet’s most
precious resource. But what do you do when water is in danger
of going dry? California’s Central Valley is no stranger
to drought, and because of that, farmers and scientists are
joining forces to figure out how to get by with less.
Although most residents have safe drinking water, more than 250
water systems serving 900,000 people were out of compliance
with drinking water standards in 2020. This is a chronic issue
for some systems; more than 170 have been out of compliance for
three or more years. More than half of these noncompliant
systems are in the San Joaquin Valley—California’s largest
farming region and home to a third of the state’s low-income
communities. Some tribal water systems face similar challenges.
Data are lacking on water quality provided by roughly 1,500
very small, county-regulated water systems and more than
350,000 domestic wells, but some of these supplies may have
chronic issues as well.
Underneath Orange County is a hidden arterial highway that
groundwater moves through before eventually finding its way
into homes. More than 70% of the water served in Orange County
is from groundwater. But some of that water has become
contaminated from industrial manufacturing when harmful
chemicals that weren’t properly disposed of seeped down into
the ground. … The Orange County Water District is tasked
with determining the extent of the pollution, and containing it
before more drinking water wells need to be shut down and
contaminants spread to the principal aquifer, which is directly
pumped by production wells for drinking water.
Seven agencies that have been working together to sustain the
groundwater in the Cosumnes Subbasin, which includes the
communities of Galt, Herald, Wilton and Rancho Murieta South,
held a workshop March 24. The presentation was intended to help
residents understand how groundwater will be used in the next
two decades in the Cosumnes Subbasin. The group has until Jan.
31, 2022 to submit its plan to the state on how it intends to
meet its target of replacing 20,000-acre feet per year (AFY) in
underground basins called aquifers to sustain the groundwater.
One of the takeaways from meeting is the plan will cost $2.25
million in the early years.
Rejecting arguments that a utility can’t be sued over
century-old pollution, a federal judge signaled Wednesday that
he will likely advance a lawsuit seeking to hold Pacific Gas
and Electric liable for contamination that occurred more than
100 years ago. … [Plaintiff and San Francisco resident Dan]
Clarke claimed groundwater contamination stemming from the site
of PG&E’s former gas plant “is intermittently discharged
into the bay.” He said seasonal, tidal and other factors result
in groundwater passing the former plant site and intermixing
with contaminants before leaking into the San Francisco Bay.
Drought is returning to California as a second, consecutive
parched winter draws to a close in the usually wet north,
leaving the state’s major reservoirs half empty. But this
latest period of prolonged dryness will probably play out very
differently across this vast state. In Northern
California, areas dependent on local supplies, such as Sonoma
County, could be the hardest-hit. Central Valley growers have
been told of steep cuts to upcoming water deliveries.
Environmentalists too are warning of grave harm to native
fish. Yet, hundreds of miles to the south, the
Metropolitan Water District of Southern California reports
record amounts of reserves — enough to carry the state’s most
populous region through this year and even next.
A groundwater market, which caps total pumping within one or
more basins, allocates portions of the total to individual
users and allows users to buy and sell groundwater under the
total cap, is a promising tool for basins implementing
California’s Sustainable Groundwater Management Act
(SGMA). … [G]roundwater markets can be a useful tool for
achieving basin sustainability, but they are not a good fit for
every basin or groundwater sustainability agency (GSA). … The
Fox Canyon groundwater market benefitted from the four enabling
conditions (water scarcity, fixed allocations, agricultural
stakeholder support, and capacity and funding) described below.
On its face, SGMA appears to promise comprehensive groundwater
management. The legislature sought to “provide for the
sustainable management of groundwater basins”. SGMA therefore
“applies to all groundwater basins in the state”…. DWR has
ranked only 18 percent (94 out of 515) of Bulletin 118
groundwater basins as medium or high priority, although these
basins account for virtually all of current groundwater pumping
in the state. The result is a fragmented regulatory system that
leaves significant gaps in the sustainable management of
California’s groundwater.
When it comes to water in the West, a lot of it is visible.
Snow stacks up high in the mountains then eventually melts and
flows down into valleys. It’s easy to see how heavy rains and
rushing rivers translate into an abundance of available water.
But another important factor of water availability is much
harder to see. Beneath the surface, the amount of moisture
held in the ground can play a big role in how much water makes
it down to rivers and reservoirs – and eventually into the
pipes that feed homes and businesses. Elise Osenga is a
community science manager for the Aspen Global Change Institute
– a nonprofit focused on expanding scientific understanding of
climate change.
Arizona’s 1980 Groundwater Management Act established pumping
regulations in the state’s most populous areas but set no such
limits on rural parts of the state. In recent years, some rural
areas have come under increased pressure from agricultural
pumping that has dropped groundwater levels dramatically. …
Lawmakers introduced several bills in the current legislative
session to regulate or provide more options for managing the
state’s groundwater. One would have banned most new wells in
the Upper San Pedro and Verde Valley river basins. Another
would have set spacing limits for new wells in areas that are
overdrawn. Another, introduced by Rep. Regina Cobb of Kingman,
would have given county supervisors the power to establish
groundwater limits or regulations in their area.
Much like when tech money reshapes an historical neighborhood,
a beaver’s move downtown can cause the locals to worry. In
Napa, the animals’ sprawling waterfront complexes create
worrying pools along the riverbank, while the native
cottonwoods are whittled down and threaten landowners’ roofs.
It seems destined that two species known for their
environmental engineering would struggle to live in unison.
However, municipalities like Napa and Martinez in Contra Costa
County have learned to live with their beavers, and the
upcoming California Beaver Summit aims to set the record
straight.
Over the coming decades, California’s San Joaquin Valley will
transition to sustainable groundwater management under the
Sustainable Groundwater Management Act (SGMA), ensuring
reliable groundwater supplies for generations to come.
Sustainable groundwater management and a changing climate will
inevitably affect how land is used on a sweeping scale. By some
estimates, the amount of farmland that will have to be taken
out of production to balance groundwater demand and supply is
equivalent to the size of Yosemite National Park — a transition
that could serve a huge blow to the agricultural economy, rural
communities and the environment.
Last week, the Court of Appeal for the Fifth Appellate District
of California issued a long-awaited decision in the Antelope
Valley Groundwater Cases, resolving a dispute more than two
decades in the making. The case adjudicated groundwater rights
in the Antelope Valley Adjudication Area (AVAA) in northern Los
Angeles County and southeast Kern County. The adjudication,
which commenced in 1999, involved private water suppliers,
public agencies, the federal government, and overlying
landowners who pump water for agricultural, industrial,
commercial, and domestic uses. Although currently unpublished,
the court’s opinion illustrates several important developments
in California groundwater law.
